The House of Mercy Board Serves a Meal at REACH

January 19, 2016

The House of Mercy’s Board of Directors served dinner to the homeless at REACH on Saturday January 16th. The board along with their spouses cooked a large meal of chicken, salad, veggies, stew, pasta, and desserts. Everyone enjoyed spending time with the people we work so hard to serve.

REACH is a new community formed group that came together to help the House of Mercy serve the chronically homeless. Last winter the House of Mercy opened up and ran Sanctuary Village to help house Rochester’s hardest to place homeless. This year while working hard towards our goal of a new & larger building for the House of Mercy REACH came forward to help.…

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Volunteer Spotlight: Juanita Washington

November 9, 2015

She was there from the beginning. When Sister Grace was hunting for a location on Central Park, Juanita Washington led her to a little place that became the first House of Mercy.

After that, Juanita volunteered to do anything and everything. And for years, she worked here almost every day. She put together racks for clothing. She handed out clothes and bread. And she cooked and cooked, helping to feed homeless people in Rochester who had nowhere else to turn.

“A lot of them were sleeping in the street and in boarded up homes and they weren’t getting anything to eat. Then when we opened up, they started to come from all over.…

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Closing of Civic Center Garage: How It All Started

May 26, 2015 2 Comments

Sanctuary Village was a temporary homeless shelter, designed to provide shelter and support to chronically homeless men and women during the winter of 2014-2015.  Over the course of nearly 3 months during one of the coldest winters in recent memory, Sanctuary Village sheltered more than 200 people.  Sanctuary Village was an unprecedented collaboration between the House of Mercy, Buckingham Properties, and the City of Rochester.  Although it opened in January 2015, the roots of the program took hold several months before.

For many years, several men and women lived in the Civic Center Garage in downtown Rochester.   As the only heated garage in the City and close to several provider agencies and resources, the garage was an attractive location for the chronically homeless.  …

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